Serendipity
by fangirlu
Summary: Jack and Allison have a long overdue conversation.  Takes place sometime between the end of season 4.0 and the beginning of 4.5.


**Disclaimer: **_Eureka_ isn't mine. Or in other words, I have all of the fun without any of the profit.

**A/N: ** Just something that snuck into my mind as I was (and still am) fighting with my muse on the next chapter of _Almost Paradise_. And the season premiere is only four weeks away! Woot!

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><p>"What did you think of me the first time we met?"<p>

The contemplative question, asked with a measured thoughtfulness that she'd rarely heard from Jack even after years of knowing him, immediately snagged Allison's attention. She pulled her eyes away from her tablet—the seemingly never-ending laundry list of tasks that she'd inherited as this timeline's medical director immediately forgotten—and stared over her upraised knees at him. He was staring back at her, a half-finished beer clutched in one hand, his bright-blue eyes earnest and more than a little apprehensive.

Confusion warred with curiosity for dominance in her mind, but after a brief internal tug-of-war, she finally settled on a state somewhere in between. Where had this come from all of a sudden? There was nothing different about this weekday evening than any other. They'd come back to the smart-house after work, eaten dinner, then retired to the couch where Jack had settled down to watch a baseball game while she tried to catch up on some work. There hadn't been any hints in his demeanor, now or anytime in the recent past, to suggest that he'd had a burning desire to ask her such a thing.

She felt her eyebrows dip as she frowned at him. "Really?"

"Well…yeah." The shrug he aimed her way was a study in nonchalance. And though his signature smile was no less easygoing than usual—and thus, no less inhumanly gorgeous—she could tell that her answer was a lot more important to him than he was letting on.

Allison watched him silently for a few seconds more then laid the tablet on her lap. Stretching out a sock-clad foot, she gently nudged his thigh with her toes. "What brought this on?"

Jack seemed to become unduly interested in the contrast of her dark-blue socks against the lighter blue of his jeans as he took his time pondering her question. Finally, he laid his free hand across the top of her foot and raised his eyes to hers again. "It's something I've been wondering about for a while now; I figured now was as good a time as any to ask."

No, that wasn't quite the entire truth, Allison thought as she let her eyes roam over his handsome face. To her perceptive ears his answer had sounded a little too pat, a little too casual for her to fully believe him. And his expressive eyes…his eyes were broadcasting a level of nervous anxiety that he probably didn't even realize he was transmitting.

She had a feeling that there was some deeper meaning to his question, something more that he wanted to ask her, but hadn't quite worked up the nerve to do.

At least not yet.

Allison knew that they would get there though—they always did. With the embarrassing exception of the four years that they'd spent dancing around each other, either too scared or too stubborn to admit their true feelings to one another, they'd never had a problem communicating. She had no doubt that before she left for the evening—_if_ she left for the evening—Jack would tell her what was truly on his mind.

"Okay then," she replied and nodded, "that's an easy one."

"Oh?"

She was delighted to see a spark of interest flare in his eyes, making them glitter with intense curiosity. He turned his body toward her, propping one leg on the sofa cushion then repositioning her feet so that they rested fully on his lap.

"Yes." Setting her tablet on the extended cushion beside her, she held out her hands to him. He set his beer on the glass surface of the coffee table with a musical _clink_ then placed his hand in both of hers. "It's probably one of the easiest questions that anyone's ever asked me."

He smiled at her, the gesture warm and sincere. "I'm afraid to ask if that's a good thing or a bad thing."

"Believe me when I say that it's a very good thing, Jack."

"Go on."

"You want me to be honest though, right?"

"Uh-oh—I'm not sure I like the sound of that."

"Well?"

Appearing to give her question serious thought, he nodded slowly. "Yes, completely honest."

"Alright." Allison sandwiched his hand between both of hers, her fingers seeking out the smooth flesh on the inside of his wrist. She stroked his skin thoughtfully. "I'm sure you remember the very first time that we met."

It wasn't a question.

"Of course," he said, a sly grin sliding onto his face. "It was the day I solved Brian Perkin's disappearance. You know…the case that all the town's geniuses combined wasn't able to figure out."

She didn't bother to chastise him for his less than humble affirmation because it was the undeniable truth. While everyone else had been running around in a barely-controlled panic, Jack had calmly inserted himself into the investigation and found Brian in less than five minutes.

By spotting a single, glaring clue that everyone else had missed, he'd managed to embarrass the former sheriff and gain her grudging admiration. Though she'd never admitted it to him, that small moment in time had opened her up to him in ways that even she hadn't realized at the time.

Allison laughed. "I'll give you that. But I mean the exact moment…the very first second…that we laid eyes on each other."

"Ally, it would take an extreme set of circumstances to ever make me forget that."

"I remember too," she replied, warmth flooding her at his sweet words. "You were trespassing on a classified crime scene, flashing your badge, acting like a condescending jerk—"

"Hey…"

"—and although part of me wanted to hand you over to Jo," she pressed on, "there was another part of me that was inexplicably…drawn to you."

Jack actually seemed surprised by that. "So I wasn't alone then."

"No, you weren't alone."

"Could've fooled me. In fact, you did an awfully good job of making me think you were barely tolerating me."

"I was just doing my job."

"You were very good at it."

She grinned. "I know."

He made a non-committal sound in the back of his throat, but flashed her a smile to let her know he was only teasing.

Scooting closer, she lowered her voice and continued, "Instant attraction aside, I'll be the first to admit that I'd already dismissed you as just another trespasser…as someone who didn't belong. I was ready to send you on your way and never look back, but I made the very foolish mistake of underestimating you."

Allison definitely had Jack's attention now. With raised eyebrows, he sat up a bit straighter, his free hand gravitating from the back of the couch to rest lightly on her thigh. Even through the thick fabric of her black denim jeans, she could feel his heat gently warming her skin. He remained silent, but his eyes were urging her to continue.

"I thought once you'd left town, that would be it. You know," she chuckled softly and pressed her palm against his, "out of sight, out of mind. But it didn't quite work out that way."

"I know the feeling," he interjected with an understanding smile. "I couldn't get you off my mind."

"Then I'm sure you remember how frustrating it was. Especially since we thought we'd never see each other again."

He nodded. "Oh, yeah."

"And then one day, you reappeared, and I was confronted by something that I never thought I'd have to face."

"Which was…?" he asked, although she was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

"My feelings for you," she said without hesitation. "And I lied to myself for a very long time about them." She cast her eyes downward, staring blindly at the back of her hand as she searched for just the right words to express something that she'd been holding inside for years. "Looking back, you seemed to know exactly what you wanted from the very beginning, but I was in some serious denial."

"Why?"

"I think…" She paused for a moment and then met his eyes again. "I think it was because you were so different from anything or anyone I'd previously known. You were way outside my comfort zone, and frankly that scared me."

"There was also Nathan," Jack added hesitantly, and Allison could tell that he was trying to navigate the introduction of her late fiancé into the conversation as carefully as possible. "And then Grant."

She shook her head. "I'm not going to try to use Nathan as an excuse, Jack. Or Grant for that matter. What kept us apart for so long was a combination of my own fears and extremely bad timing."

"It wasn't all on you."

Jack didn't elaborate, but he didn't need to. By his own admission, he'd loved her from afar for years, but until recently had never acted on it. The changes in this new timeline—along with Grant's dogged pursuit of her, she'd begun to suspect—had finally pushed him into making his move.

The first time he'd asked her out had been awkward, but adorable. And after a rather uncomfortable false start, he'd finally let her know in no uncertain terms just how much he'd wanted her.

That momentous shift in their relationship was so indelibly burned into her brain that just the memory of that scorching, passionate kiss—shared in a GD hallway for all the world to see, no less—still had the power to make her swoon.

"We both wasted a lot of time," she agreed, "but I think that things worked out the way they were supposed to."

"I'll admit that I've never been a big believer in fate, but sometimes…" He shrugged and let the rest of his sentence dangle in mid-air, unspoken, but they both knew what he was getting at.

Destiny had seemed determined to bring them together, no matter what.

"I think you might be right."

"Just don't tell Lexi," he joked with a low chuckle. "I have a reputation to protect."

At the mention of his carefree sister, Allison grinned. "Your secret's safe with me."

When his playful demeanor vanished as quickly as it had appeared, she tilted her head and studied him carefully, searching his eyes with hers.

"Is there something else?" she asked quietly.

He shifted on the white cushions looking distinctly ill-at-ease. "I'm not exactly a sharer."

"You've been doing pretty well so far." She gave his hand an encouraging squeeze.

"Okay." He took a deep breath. "Okay," he said again, nodded, then cleared his throat. "I'll admit that I sometimes wonder…why me?"

Floored, Allison could only blink at him incredulously. She hadn't known quite what to expect, but it certainly hadn't been _that_.

That he even had to wonder why she would want to be with him was a notion that was so ludicrous that it was nearly impossible to wrap her brain around.

She reached out and lightly rested the tips of her fingers against the strong line of his jaw. She stroked his skin, the beginnings of the dark-blond stubble that had already begun to grow scratching at her soft flesh. "Oh, Jack—isn't it obvious? You've shared my triumphs, coached me through my failures, and helped me survive one of the most painful moments of my life. And through _all o_f that, you never lost faith in me and, you never, _ever_ stopped loving me."

Jack's eyes were shining at her. "Ally..."

"You make me a better person," she interrupted him, needing to finish what she'd started, needing for him to finally _know _once and for all, "and I will forever be thankful that you chose me." She leaned forward and let him peer straight into her soul. "I need for you to understand that, Jack. _You _chose _me_."

The smile that blossomed across his face was tender and huge and very, very happy.

Returning his smile with an elated grin of her own, Allison chucked him lightly under his dimpled chin. "Does that answer your question, Sheriff?"

"And then some." Blue eyes sparkling with joy, he slid a hand under the heavy curtain of her hair, cupped the back of her neck, and pulled her mouth to his.

Jack's kiss was unhurried, yet intense. Infinitely gentle, yet undoubtedly passionate. It was a physical manifestation of a love that was so deep, so all-encompassing and all-enduring that it had crossed timelines and cheated death itself just for the chance to flourish and grow.

Just as tendrils of desire began to curl low in her stomach, she pulled away from him and quickly slid sideways off the sofa. She held out her hand to him. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" he asked. His lips turned up at the corners in a crafty smile as he slipped his hand into hers and allowed her to pull him to his feet.

Leading him toward the stairs, she glanced back at him over her shoulder. "I told you how I feel about you; now I'm going to show you." She gave his arm a playful tug. "You got a problem with that?"

"Nope." Jack turned up the wattage on his smile as he eagerly trailed behind her, a definite spring in his step. "Not a one."

Threading her fingers through his, Allison threw back her head and laughed. "I didn't think so."


End file.
